


The Water

by bamfbugboy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bitter old dads, Body Horror, Brainwashed!Jack, Brainwashing, Canon Compliant, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Racism, Reaper76 - Freeform, Reunions, Torture, credit for these headcanons comes from tumblr users vickjawn and jara257
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 04:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7560823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamfbugboy/pseuds/bamfbugboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crest of waves crash against jagged rocks and the steep cliffside. He arrived just in time to watch the sun set past the horizon on the Mediterranean Sea, like he used to do on evenings so similar to today years ago. He used to enjoy the sea breeze, the smell of salt in the air, but now all it does is remind him of what he has lost. He remembers the evenings spent holding the man he loved in his arms, where nothing else mattered. Not Overwatch, not the UN, not Blackwatch. It was in those moments he thought maybe they would be able to find happiness, that somehow they would be able to weather the storms and come out stronger, together. After years of separation, he hoped, foolishly, that perhaps they'd finally be able to crawl out of the abyss after so long and start over. He doesn't deserve forgiveness, and he shouldn't be surprised to be standing here alone.</p><p>In hindsight, he should have known their story would only end in tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Water

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is my take on the Overwatch lore and the relationship between Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes. This piece draws heavily from tumblr user's [vickjawn's theory/idea](http://vickjawn.tumblr.com/post/147347218784/soldier-daddy-76-vickjawn-visor76) that perhaps Jack Morrison was brainwashed by the UN higher ups in addition to [ jara257's art pieces](http://officialpharma.co.vu/post/146009857459/by-the-end-of-this-youll-hate-me-just-as-much-as).

He finds his way to Gibraltar by memory, and his steel clad boots lead him here, to the place he loves and hates all at once. The beautiful orange cliffsides bathed in the sunset’s red and purple hues take him back to a time he doesn’t want to remember--to a world so lost, so out of reach, so forsaken that the memories that rush back hurt deep in his bones.

The watchpoint has been inactive for close to ten years. It’s a shell of its former self without the business of Overwatch agents trying to keep the world together in the face of constant political, social, and economic crisis. Wave after wave of strife, and this watchpoint stood on the front lines.

The dead walk among him. Ghosts, souls, only remnants of the people he once called allies remain here. He wishes the explosion had occurred here, where the blast would have leveled the entire watchpoint, destroying the shell, burying it all under rubble, exorcism through flame. The spirits trapped here might have been able to find peace that way. The memories that haunt him perhaps might not have come back if the place had become smoldering ash.

No matter how angry Overwatch makes him, the moments spent here at Gibraltar continue to be some of his happiest memories. They are his cross to bear, his curse. They define his mistakes and his sacrifices. But he’s an older man now, and time has helped fizzle out his rage. All he has left for company continues to be bitterness. It fills the void where his heart should be; it helps him justify his actions, however cruel. Overwatch took everything from him because of his heritage. With the stroke of a pen, the UN committee overseeing Overwatch took away everything he had worked for. He blamed the members for tearing apart his relationship with his friends, with his comrades. He blamed them for taking away the one person he cared about most. His skin color, his old name--to the committee they were not the makings of Strike Commander, but instead that of Blackwatch. They sent him to Hell, so he made sure he became the Devil.

The sea breeze blows through his cloak, pulling at his hood, and he doesn’t catch it. It falls back onto his shoulders, and as he approaches the cliffside, he removes his mask carefully. He takes a deep breath of fresh air, and when he exhales, thick black smoke passes his scarred lips. What he wouldn’t give to go back in time and undo his mistakes. What he wouldn’t give to go back for even a moment’s time to the days where he felt happiness, real, tangible happiness with Jack Morrison in his arms as they sat together on the cliffside, staring out at the Strait of Gibraltar. Even when the world burned all around them, they thought they could somehow weather all the blows sent their way. He thought their happiness would never die.

The UN committee, no doubt, shouldered much of the blame for Overwatch’s fall in other ways besides the promotion. Corruption ran amuck in its ranks, embezzlement, racketeering, assassinations--even rumors of human trafficking. The world needed to repair itself, so the UN did everything but help the people it was supposed to help. Overwatch worked blind more often than not, funds constantly siphoned to other projects, some legitimate, some illegal, and when he learned what he thought was the truth, Gabriel Reyes took the information to Jack Morrison, who told him to take it to the press.

_Exposure will save Overwatch, and I’ll be at your side._

The press ate Gabriel Reyes alive. Not even Golden Boy Strike Commander Boy Scout Jack Morrison could counter the tidal wave of negative PR Blackwatch and Overwatch received. Smere campaigning. Slander. Then they dared accuse Jack of bias, and the tabloids ran wild. Some stories missed the mark by miles. Others shot dead center.

_Is There A Secret Love Affair Between Blackwatch and Overwatch’s Strike Commanders?_

Even under the new strain of working separate organizations under one roof, even with constant fighting and disagreement, they continued their relationship. Jack did his best to fight for Gabriel with the UN officials, but it hadn’t been enough. They wanted a white man to lead Overwatch. They wanted someone who fit the mold, who didn’t cause problems without the intention of solving them, who they could manipulate as they saw fit. Sure, their relationship wasn’t always as gentle and as rosy as the days before the First Omnic Crisis, but there still was love. Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison both knew it wouldn’t be easy.

The tabloids hit their target, and neither of them could ignore the onslaught.

Gabriel wouldn’t let Jack take the fall. If he couldn’t be Strike Commander then Jack Morrison needed to be. Jack was never a good liar, though, not with the press. Gabriel broke off the relationship so Jack didn’t have to lie. He canceled the trip he had organized to the middle of nowhere, where he had planned to propose to Jack. They would have eloped as if they were in Vegas, and even if they couldn’t go public, they’d at least have the memories, the vows, the rings on their fingers underneath armored gloves. At least behind closed doors they could have been happy. The media ruined their chance.

Separation didn’t bode well. Jack didn’t want to break up. Did he think Gabriel really wanted to, either? It didn’t matter if most countries involved with the UN had legalized gay marriage decades prior to Overwatch’s formation. Cultural attitudes didn’t shift as quickly. It broke Jack in some ways before the explosion in Zurich. It hardened him. Turned him bitter as a year passed. Their relationship deteriorated. Overwatch’s wounds began to fester and infect its members.

Then came the mysterious oversight hearings--as the memo described--held behind closed doors without his involvement across the pond in New York over the course of three weeks at the very least. They wanted Jack Morrison to explain what was going on, not Gabriel Reyes.

When Jack came back, distance had not made the hearts grow fonder. Fights broke out when they did meet in the halls of Zurich HQ. Fighting over work. Fighting just to fight. Yelling, cussing. It added to the stress they both carried. He couldn’t sleep well in the months before the explosion. He thought he had hit rock bottom. He was hardly half-way down the abyss. Their fighting changed. For the first time in years, Jack admitted that he felt it was right that he was chosen for the position of Strike Commander.

_I’m the better soldier, the better icon, the better man. All you are is a jealous hard-ass who irritates everyone you come into contact with. You belong in Blackwatch, where no one will see or hear you._

Years later, Gabriel Reyes learned that those words didn’t belong to Jack. Years later, he learned that the oversight meetings were a mere euphemism for reprogramming experiments. Jack couldn’t escape being the UN’s pretty little guinea pig. Combined with constant stress, heartbreak, and apathy, Jack took to the program. Gabriel learned they even placed chemical spores in Jack’s room’s air filters that made the MK-Ultra experiments of the 1960s and 70s look tame. They turned Jack into a monster, one that they could control.

Gabriel Reyes should have seen the signs that something was wrong. He should have known something was different in his old lover’s sky blue eyes. He should have known that Jack would never say those things, that he knew it was wrong, and that Gabriel should have been chosen. He should have known Jack really did love him in spite of it all.

Instead, Gabriel only grew more angry, more jaded, more callous. The casualties began to pile. They lost Amelie, then Gerard, then Amelie again. They lost Ana to Amelie. Blackwatch lost McCree after a botched job Gabriel had sent him on knowing damn well it was a set up. Jesse lost his arm. The guilt wracked Gabriel’s heart for weeks and when he crossed paths with Jack in Zurich, everything burst into the open.

He begged Jack to come back. He admitted his mistakes, he apologized for his behavior. He told Jack he still loved him. He told Jack he should have never let go. Gabriel had never begged a moment in his life, but for Jack Morrison he made an exception. He didn’t care who saw--and everyone did.

Jack Morrison told him to leave, to stop making a scene, to let it go.

_I don’t love you. I don’t know why I ever did._

Gabriel’s heart shriveled and turned black. As Ana loved to joke, it only takes one piece of added straw to break an overburdened camel’s back. Gabriel made sure everything burned. He wanted Overwatch to die and meet its maker in Hell. The coup destroyed everyone, and he made sure it destroyed Jack Morrison.

On the day of the explosion, they crossed paths, and looking back, Gabriel should have known. Jack looked like Death. His once pretty head of blonde hair was beginning to grey prematurely and recede at his forehead. Bags hung heavy under his eyes. He didn’t walk as tall as he used to. It was so clear in the way Jack spoke, in hindsight. He hadn’t been paying attention to the words, the hidden code from a man who was screaming on the inside. At the time, all Gabriel could think about was how he hoped he’d be able to see the life fade from Jack’s eyes before he died.

When the explosion ruptured the building, they let their world crumble all around them. Overwatch swallowed them whole. He had front row seats to watching Jack die. In those moments between life and sure death, Gabriel saw a glimpse of the man he once loved buried under rubble. He saw Jack’s hand reaching out for his, desperately, and then the fourth explosion rang, and Gabriel Reyes died.

Reaper came to life at the hands of his Victor Frankenstein, a woman in this narrative, Angela Ziegler, his old friend. Melded back together with nanites and biotic technology, Angela had tried to resurrect Gabriel Reyes, only to instead create a monster. She had played God once with Genji Shimada, but this time, she brought Death himself to life. Reaper was her abomination, a rotting, dying, ethereal beast who could disperse into smoke and reform as a solid man. A man who needed to cannibalize living souls. A man in constant physical pain and agony.

He hated his creator. He despised her intentions. What point was there in living a life as an eldritch monstrosity? What point was there in living as the walking dead? Her arrogance caused him to put three bullets into his mouth in a feeble attempt to end it. His own arrogance caused him to have to pull three bullets out.

When he looked in the mirror, he saw her creation with his own eyes. Ragged, ugly scars crossing his face. One warped ear. Blood red eyes. Half of his face scarred by burns. His complexion ashen. He looked sickly. A perpetual frown. Anger boiled in his blood and he watched in horror as his skin turned to black, toxic smoke like a ghost. His hand could become tendrils of whispy smoke that could be as gaseous or as solid as he desired. He could turn into a wraith, into a creature of his nightmares. He couldn’t stand the sight of himself in the mirror. He carved himself a mask from bone and never took it off.

To satiate his hunger, he killed. When stealing the life from animals didn’t work, he took to killing criminals. He remained in the shadows and tried everything he could to manage the endless pain he suffered. Then Talon approached him with promises of further revenge. They paid him and provided him with an endless supply of souls through their assassinations. He became the Reaper--La Lecheza. He accepted his fate.

When Soldier 76 crossed with him on a unusually cold evening in Dorado, Mexico, he knew without a doubt it was Jack Fucking Morrison. The number a sure giveaway (Jack had been the seventy-sixth person invited to join the soldier enhancement program), the grey hair the next, then the posture, then the acts of sheer selflessness. He was doing the hero work as a vigilante, like some god damn comic book caper. Jack saved a young girl from Los Muertos thugs by protecting her from a grenade with his own damn body.

From up above, Reaper could hear their brief conversation.

_You’re one of those heroes, aren’t you?_

_No. Not anymore._

Reaper scoffed. Jack Morrison was fucking dead, so his new identity Soldier 76 had to pick up the mantle of being fucking perfect boy scout. He wanted to jump down and expose the man as a fraud. Heroes didn’t exist. He refrained only because he didn’t have the balls to tell a little girl she had been duped like he had by Jack Morrison.

They fought in Giza, Egypt and exchanged words. Reaper revealed himself as Soldier 76’s old comrade, and the horror on Jack’s visor-covered face had been too priceless. The old man deserved to suffer, and the only thing that spared Jack Fucking Morrison’s life was the surprising arrival of Ana Amari. Back from the grave. He wanted to tell her what Jack had done, tell her what Jack had become, but she chose his side. In their fight, Ana cracked Reaper’s mask and saw what lay beneath. She’s a strong woman, but even she was shaken and disturbed.

_What’s happened to you?_

Reaper cackled and aimed to kill. Then he heard it.

_Spare her, Gabe. She hasn’t done anything. Project: Arachnid, Gabriel. Look it up. Please. Come back to me. Let me explain. Just don’t kill her, please. This has nothing to do with her._

Reaper let her go and left--not because 76 asked him but because he still cared for Ana. He didn’t know she survived the encounter with Widowmaker. He didn’t know, how could he? He buried so many of his friends and had killed others. He left because he couldn’t handle the sound of Jack’s voice without the visor obscuring it. He couldn’t bear to look at Jack or Ana one moment more. He wanted the dead to remain dead.

Against his better judgment he researched Project: Arachnid through Talon by using stolen malware to break into their servers, and what he found wasn’t surprising. It was the project that turned Amelie Lacroix, a loving wife and professional ballerina into a killing machine. He remembers when he first heard she had gone missing, then when she returned, explaining she had been kidnapped and tortured. Her pain looked genuine. Her horror and sadness sounded real--and in many ways, it was. It hurt watching a woman he knew become something she wasn’t at her core. It hurt hearing about Gerard’s gruesome death and who his killer was.

In his research, he came across something unsettling that quickly became disturbing. He found transactions between Talon and a shell corporation Gabriel had discovered when he uncovered truth behind the corruption rumors in Overwatch years ago, when his life began to fall apart. The shell corporation was one of many used to funnel funds between the UN and Talon. But for what?

Then fear began to settle into his bones. Why would the UN be working with an infamous organization like Talon? Had the corruption gone that deep? Reaper--Gabriel Reyes--needed answers, and after a year of travel and digging, he stumbled upon a half-broken server at Watchpoint Johannesburg full of data that someone had tried desperately to encrypt and make disappear. He had never been good with tech, it was always Torbjorn’s interest, but he managed to at least get the power running enough to turn on the server.

What he found broke him. He found archived medical records under the name of Jack Morrison listing injections of chemicals he didn’t recognize--chemistry had always been Ana’s or Angela’s specialty. He found travel records that coincided with the private oversight committee meetings Jack had been asked to attend for Overwatch in New York. Had there ever really been meetings, or had Jack been kidnapped? Then he found video footage.

_Surely you must know that I would never turn on Gabriel Reyes. Him and I have spent our lives together since we were eighteen in basic training. I have served with him in combat. I have saved his life as many times as he has saved mine. He would do anything for me, and I know he’ll come for me. He’ll realize something’s wrong, that I’m gone for too long, he’ll figure out what you’re doing, and he’ll put a stop to this._

Jack sat strapped to a chair, sitting and watching an empty screen--until a man appeared.

_Oh, Jack, I’d like to see you try and resist me._

They had created a perfect AI simulation of Gabriel Reyes, who in video after video tore Jack down piece by piece. The AI looked and sounded perfectly like Gabriel Reyes. The same scars, the same facial hair, the same smirk. His voice nuanced, his Spanish flawless, his words as harsh or as sensual as the way the real Gabriel Reyes spoke. People in biohazard suits picked and prodded at Jack with needles and scalpels, leaving tiny incision marks. Jack wasn’t allowed to sleep in the bright room. The AI wouldn’t let him, and when Jack looked like he was about to fall asleep or pass out, the AI Gabriel roared at him with fury. Accusations of lying, of cheating on him, of being afraid of him, of stealing Overwatch out from under him. He called Jack horrible things, and even as Jack whimpered and struggled in his chair, he still stood by his initial words.

_I’ll never turn on Gabriel. I love him._

Gabriel the AI slowly ripped out Jack’s heart. Electrocutions, water-boarding--they even knew Jack’s ridiculous fear of the dark, and they used it against him. The entirety of the oversight committee meetings held in New York lasted for three weeks. Jack endured for three weeks in this Hell, for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. For endless sessions. There were too many video files. 857. On 858, Jack Morrison complied with programming instructions and lost the battle.

Gabriel didn’t know he still had the capacity to cry since dying and being reborn as a monster. He couldn’t fight back the onslaught of emotions. He sobbed as he watched Jack Morrison repeat instructions from his new masters. He watched in horror as the video showed Jack screaming in pain at the sight of him, Gabriel Reyes, smiling. Somehow the mother fuckers had gotten ahold of their most private photos. The only one Jack had of him smiling. He heard the instructions.

_Return to Zurich. Lead Overwatch. Avoid Blackwatch. If you come into contact with Gabriel Reyes, make sure he knows what you think of him. Overwatch is yours, Jack Morrison. You will die before you see it crumble._

They turned Jack on him, and Gabriel had fallen into their trap. He let his jealousy, his spite, and his own loneliness eat away at his heart, his judgment, and his senses. How could he have seen Jack was not himself when Gabriel couldn’t recognize himself either in the mirror?

Fury overwhelmed him at first. He returned to Talon’s HQ and killed every agent he could get his hands on before being overrun. He feasted on their souls, and he savored it. He found the remaining UN Overwatch committee members and he executed them. He made sure they saw his wretched face in their dying breaths. The grave couldn’t hold him until he exacted his revenge.

When the bodies finished piling up and the dead were long gone from this earth, grief hit him like a truck. He mourned his and Jack’s relationship. He spent long evenings sitting at Jack Morrison’s grave in Arlington clutching at Jack’s old dog tags with the wedding rings he had purchased years ago on the chain. He brought marigolds to the empty grave of the man he loved for the first time in over five years.

He chastised himself for his selfishness and his blind foolishness. Overwatch may have been the pinnacle of his career, but it was ultimately a career. A job. Losing a job didn’t compare to losing the man he loved. Letting fears stop him from loving Jack, even in self-sacrifice, will always be the worst mistake of his life. Letting Jack Morrison slip from his fingers will always be his greatest failure. Letting his unhappiness mutate into bloodthirst, no matter the degree of vitriol between them, to the point of setting off explosives at Zurich HQ will always be his greatest sin. He’ll never be able to atone for it.

Gabriel wondered if their lives had ever really been their own from the start.

**Author's Note:**

> Title of this piece comes from the song [ "The Water" by HURTS.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54BD96iuhGI)
> 
> If you'd like to talk Overwatch with me or suffer in sadness with me, feel free to hit me up on tumblr @ [bamfbugboy!](http://bamfbugboy.tumblr.com)


End file.
